I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.

Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.

Scientists tend to be skeptical, but the weakness of the community of science is that it tends to move into preformed establishment modes that say this is the only way of doing science, the only valid view.

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.

By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.